There are a couple instances in Hi-Score Girl where someone is advised that if they want to get proficient in fighting games, they should start with Yie Ar Kung-Fu. I could use some proficiency, so here I am. Although, I believe they were specifically referring to the Famicom version, and here we have its original 1984 arcade release.

I’ve learned that, when talking about video game history, the first game to do something was never the first. Yie Ar Kung-Fu is sometimes referred to as the first fighting game (as it is in Hi-Score Girl), but what qualifies is debated. Many point at 1984’s Karate Champ, but I can almost guarantee you that on some Gods-forsaken cassette somewhere, there’s somebody’s hand-programmed experiment on something like Apple II where they inadvertently created Street Fighter and forgot about it. And you’ll make a statement like, “Karate Champ was the first 1v1 fighting game,” and someone will pull that cassette out that they got from some obscure, limited circulation publication called “Apple Biters Monthly” and prove you wrong.

But I digress. Yie Ar Kung-Fu was a pre-Street Fighter 1v1 fighting game that laid the groundwork for Capcom’s later breakout success in the genre.

I KNOW KUNG-FU

You can probably guess the core concept before I even tell you. You play as a kung-fu dude and face off against a series of foes with different fighting styles. They’re all named after their weapon of choice aside from the end boss Blues, Buchu, which I only know as an onomatopoeia for an enthusiastic (and often sloppy) kiss, and Feedle, which I’m pretty sure isn’t a word in any language I know of. There are 11 of them, in total and there are no continues, though you can gain lives.

What makes Yie Ar Kung-Fu innovative (beyond its, y’know, core concept) is the fact that pressing kick and punch in combination with any of the eight directions on the joystick will make your character perform a different move. It’s very similar to Typhoon Gal which was released the same year, so I’m not sure who did it first.

Like any fighting game, you’re probably going to focus on your kicks, with down and front kick being the most heavily used. If you can get in real close to your opponent, however, you’re better off punching, since they’re quicker. There’s also a move priority system in play, wherein if you and your opponent hit each other at the same time, the move with the higher priority registers while the lower one doesn’t. But that’s getting a little beyond my comfort zone. Kind of. I think I just explained it concisely, so maybe it’s just beyond my self-confidence zone.

You can also jump, and it feels funny to mention that as if it’s something revelatory, but in a game of this antiquity, it’s not a given. But like you’d maybe expect from a game of this antiquity, the jumping is extremely floaty. You’ll jump maybe 3/4 of the stage and usually clear over your opponent, but it’s a necessity to get out of harm’s way sometimes. Just a little enthusiastic, that’s all.

FEEDLE DEE AND FEEDLE DUM

The difficulty rises with each opponent. Kind of. I’m going to be real and say that a lot of Yie Ar Kung-Fu can come down to luck. It’s a mix of that priority and move variation I’ve explained. Sometimes, you’ll be able to jump and land right next to an opponent, cutting their health bar in half with a quick flurry of punches. Other times, you’ll have the timing down and will be able to push them back every time they get closed with simple kicks. But sometimes that just doesn’t work out and you get savaged for being at the wrong place at the wrong time. There’s no block, so it’s hard to break free from a combo.

That’s not to say that there isn’t any strategy; it’s especially important in the later stages, but there isn’t as much as you’d maybe expect. From the 16 different attacks most aren’t all that useful. Sometimes, an enemy will be more susceptible to a less conventional punch, but most of the time, you’ll get all your mileage by carefully timing basic forward moves. Jump attacks are hard to pull off to the point where I couldn’t really do them consistently. It’s not enough to press the button in mid-jump; you have to do it sort of simultaneously with your jump. No, looking it up, it appears that you have to hold the attack button and then press the stick in a jumping direction. Not very intuitive, or maybe my intuitor is broken.

I did intuit that if you kick Buchu in the dick, he’ll say something in digitized speech. I don’t know what it is but… Hold on, let me search this. “What does Buchu say when you kick him in the dick Yie Ar Kung-Fu arcade?”

He says, “nǐ hǎo!” That’s Mandarin for “Hello.” So that seems appropriate.

FACE TO FOOT STYLE

So, generally, the strategy for each fight is how to get close and how best to assault their dick. Typical fighting game. The enemies all have different abilities with their weapons, so it doesn’t feel like the same fight every time. Plus, Feedle is actually a group of dudes who walk at you from both directions and can easily be knocked out with a single kick. Poor guy is practically just the car bonus stage.

It’s also a very short game, even if you make it all the way to the end. Which, as I said, you only have one extra life to do it on the default settings. I could get to Tonfun (penultimate opponent) pretty consistently, but I wanted to see if I could beat them all before doing this review, so I cranked up the extra lives. I still made it to Tonfun without dying, and then proceeded to drop all my lives. So, the existence of Blues is hearsay for me. I’m guessing if I did make it to him, he’d kick my ass anyway.

To echo what Hi-Score Girl implied, Yie Ar Kung-Fu really does feel like necessary reading when it comes to understanding the fighting game genre. It’s not something you really need to play to get good at Street Fighter II, but it boils everything down to its basics: no blocking, no super moves, no multiplayer. And truly, for as long as it lasts, it’s a pretty good time. It maybe just isn’t as endlessly playable as the fighting games of the ‘90s.

7/10

This review was conducted on a Nintendo Switch using an Arcade Archives digital version of the game. It was paid for by the author.